On My Bookshelf
Eve Golden ’79
Growing up, Eve Golden’s parents and grandparents surrounded her with books. Although she always loved reading, she was a theater major at TU and started her career working as a receptionist at an advertising agency in New York.
“I managed to work my way up into a copywriting position, and, from there, I went on to write for magazines and newspapers and then books,” she says.
Golden has penned eight biographies on figures from Hollywood’s Golden Age, like Jayne Mansfield and silent film star John Gilbert. On her website, Eve’s Obits, she recounts the lives of recently deceased people with sharpness and wit, captured by the site’s tagline: “People are dying who never died before!”
In 1979
Golden worked in TU’s Historic Clothing Collection, which was among the many positive experiences she had as a student. “I made lots of great friends and took courses that I learned important things from.” Here’s some of what she was reading back then.
“Vile Bodies” by Evelyn Waugh
My little group and I patterned our lives after the people in that book. They were scatterbrained and enthusiastic and misguided and very colorful. We just fell in love with them.
“It” by Elinor Glyn
It’s like the book version of the films they make fun of on “Mystery Science Theater.” It’s hilariously badly written in a good way.
“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” by Anita Loos
It’s absolutely hilarious in an intentionally good way. I still find myself using phrases from that book without even realizing it. It’s just great comedy writing. It’s still fresh after almost 100 years.
“Bulfinch’s Mythology” by Thomas Bulfinch
I was assigned this for a class at Towson. It’s another one I can reread constantly. It’s a book written in the late 19th century about the ancient Greek, Roman, Norse and Germanic gods.
“The Mode in Costume” by R. Turner Wilcox
This was one of our textbooks. It’s a series of ink drawings of clothing and hats and shoes from ancient Greece and Rome up until it was published around 1950. It’s great browsing if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
“Thirteen Women” by Tiffany Thayer
He wrote a series in the early ’30s of really lurid, trashy books. Lots of sex and violence. And “Thirteen Women,” I think, was his best.
In 2025
A resident of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, Golden remains an avid reader. Her latest biography, “Strictly Dynamite: The Sensational Life of Lupe Velez,” was released by the University of Kentucky Press in 2023. These are the books she’s loved lately.
“Say Nothing” by Patrick Radden Keefe
It’s a wonderful, terrifying, depressing book about the Troubles in Ireland in the late ’60s and ’70s.
“The Bishop and the Butterfly” by Michael Wolraich
I was hoping somebody would write a book about Vivian Gordon and thank goodness they did. She was a very sketchy character in New York in the teens and ‘20s, and she was blackmailing the wrong people.
“Rainbow’s End: The Judy Garland Show” by Coyne Sanders
I watched “The Judy Garland Show” when I was a little kid with my parents. This is a history of why that show was a disaster. The author takes no prisoners.
“The Unwomanly Face of War” by Svetlana Alexievich
It’s a series of interviews of women who served on the front lines in World War II from Russia. And it’s just harrowing. It’s so upsetting that I had to put it down several times while reading it.
“Ferocious Ambition: Joan Crawford’s March to Stardom” by Robert Dance
If I couldn’t write a biography of Joan Crawford, I’m glad Robert Dance did. This is well researched, unbiased and chock full of great photos.
“The Ohnita Harbor Mysteries” by Patricia Crisafulli
If you like Agatha Christie, you’ll like these new small-town murder mysteries. There’s a new one due out soon, and I am anxiously awaiting it.